Posted 2 years ago on Dec. 5, 2012, 11:28 a.m. EST by WSmith
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from Cornelius, OR
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Disability Treaty Defeated in Senate Would Have Made No Changes to US Law

By: David Dayen Tuesday December 4, 2012 1:56 pm

Harry Reid blasted out a reaction to the Senate defeat of an international treaty on disabilities, and the part that should jump out at you is this:

It is a sad day when we cannot pass a treaty that simply brings the world up to the American standard for protecting people with disabilities because the Republican party is in thrall to extremists and ideologues. The United States is seen as a leader around the world. Today, we had a chance to lead, and we failed because a small group of Republican senators fear the Tea Party more than they care about equality for people with disabilities.

That’s right, the treaty in question, the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, was modeled on current US law, specifically the landmark 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act. The treaty merely would bring the signatories around the world up to the standard of the ADA, with non-binding language to that effect. No US law would have changed if the treaty passed and the US became a signatory.

In fact, the real victims here, aside from countries who use the US rejection as cover to reject the treaty themselves, are disabled US veterans abroad. If you haven’t been paying attention, we have a few disabled members of the military these days after two wars. They may not benefit from the model of the Americans with Disabilities Act being put into place in the countries abroad in which they serve. So the 38 Republicans who voted against this today really slapped veterans and active military in the face. I don’t know whether these Republicans had home schooling in mind, or whether they concluded that a fleeting reference to “reproductive health” in the treaty mandated abortions, or what. But the disabled veteran who can’t find a wheelchair on-ramp in some foreign country should know who to blame.

Incidentally, eight Republicans voted for the treaty. Three of them are retiring (Richard Lugar, Scott Brown, and Olympia Snowe). John McCain is disabled himself and he could only get a handful of his colleagues – new best pal Kelly Ayotte, Lisa Murkowski, John Barrasso, and Susan Collins – to vote with him. Even Lindsey Graham said no to his fellow amigo!

Reid said he planned to bring the treaty up for another vote in the next Congress. I don’t know if it will matter – the two Democratic pickups were in Brown and Lugar’s seats, and they voted for the treaty. With the Constitutionally required 2/3 supermajority needed for treaties, and the conservative wing always available to gin up a controversy about anything, you can probably kiss international treaties goodbye for the near future.

Following up on Rick Santorum’s new job at the conspiracy website World Net Daily, and his absolutely insane fear-mongering column about the UN treaty on the rights of the disabled, heartless Republican bastards in the Senate rejected the treaty today — even with Bob Dole making a special appearance in a wheelchair to support it: Republican Opposition Downs UN Disability Treaty.

WASHINGTON — Led by Republican opposition, the Senate on Tuesday rejected a United Nations treaty on the rights of the disabled that is modeled after the landmark Americans with Disabilities Act.

With 38 Republicans casting “no” votes, the 61-38 vote fell five short of the two-thirds majority needed to ratify a treaty. The vote took place in an unusually solemn atmosphere, with senators sitting at their desks rather than milling around the podium. Former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, looking frail and in a wheelchair, was in the chamber to support the treaty.

The treaty, already signed by 155 nations and ratified by 126 countries, including Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia, states that nations should strive to assure that the disabled enjoy the same rights and fundamental freedoms as their fellow citizens. Republicans objected to taking up a treaty during the lame-duck session of the Congress and warned that the treaty could pose a threat to U.S. national sovereignty.

“I do not support the cumbersome regulations and potentially overzealous international organizations with anti-American biases that infringe upon American society,” said Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla.

Sen. Inhofe is absolutely wrong. No UN treaty can ever supersede the laws of the United States; the Supreme Court has ruled that the Supremacy Clause of the US Constitution specifically forbids it. This is pure right wing fear-mongering at its most evil, and it’s flat out disgusting.

The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities failed to capture the 2/3 vote needed for ratification in the U.S. Senate today due to fierce Republican opposition. Many Republicans and their allies in the conservative movement claimed that the treaty codifies abortion into law, even though that preposterous claim was rejected by the National Right to Life Committee and Sen. John McCain. Along with the false charges about abortion, opponents of the treaty claimed it will undermine U.S. sovereignty and harm children. Critics like Rick Santorum warned that the treaty may kill his disabled daughter; Glenn Beck said it could create a “fascistic” government and Sen. Jim Inhofe alleged the treaty would help groups with “anti-American biases.”

One of the lesser-known but extremely active opponents of the bill was homeschooling activist Michael Farris.

During an interview with Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, he claimed that the treaty will prompt the United Nations to ‘get control’ of children with glasses or ADHD and remove them from their families.

Farris: They’re called living documents, just like the disgraced living Constitution theory, which means the treaty doesn’t mean today what it’s going to mean tomorrow what it’s going to mean ten years from now. So you never know what you’re signing up for, that by itself is a good enough reason to leave it alone and to never enter into one of these things. But in particular, you hit the nail on the head Tony, the definition of disability is not defined in the treaty. My kid wears glasses, now they’re disabled, now the UN gets control over them; my child’s got a mild case of ADHD, now you’re under control of the UN treaty. There’s no definitional standard, it can change over time, and the UN, not American policymakers, are the ones who get it decided.

While speaking with the American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer, the two warned that the treaty could lead to the deaths of disabled children, all the while admitting they have no evidence it would do such beyond their pure speculation.

Fischer: Disabled newborn babies in the UK are being put, oftentimes overriding the wishes of parents, on this death pathway where no matter what the parents want the doctors say this kid cannot live, severely disabled, too many congenital deformities, we think the best thing for this kid is just to be starved and dehydrated to death. It seems to me that although that’s not specifically contemplated in this treaty that could be an outcome.

Farris: Whether they thought about it or not, that’s exactly what Rick Santorum said in our press conference. He was holding his daughter Bella and she’s of the category of child that in Britain they would take that position because her official diagnosis is ‘incompatible with life.’ So when the doctor gets to decide, the doctor empowered by the government—these doctors aren’t doing it on their own, they are doing it because the government says they have the power to do it—the doctor/government deciding what they think is best for the child. It goes to the point of deciding whether the child lives or dies, it is that crazy. If we want to live in a Brave New World like that where the bureaucrats and the government and the UN all tell us what to do, fine, but this is the beginning of the end of American self-government if we go here, it’s just crazy, we cannot let this happen.

After warning that the treaty will kill children, Farris told conservative talk show host Steve Deace that the treaty will create a “cradle-to-grave care for the disabled” and said if the U.S. ratifies it “signing up to be an official socialist nation.” Farris claimed that the treaty will treat the parents of disabled children like child abusers in order to grow government power and implement “coercive socialism.”

“Everybody in America will be living under is socialism as an international entitlement” if the treaty passes, Farris maintained, “it’s a way to make the socialist, liberal, amoral element a permanent feature of our law.” Deace agreed and said the treaty will “due in freedom and liberty.”

Farris: Every parent with a disabled child is going to be in the same legal position as if they’d been convicted of child abuse. We are taking away parental decision-making power in that area. The other thing that everybody in America will be living under is socialism as an international entitlement. The United States resisted all the UN treaties of a certain category that began being proliferated in the 1960s; the first was the International Covenant on Economic and Social Rights. Our country said no that is coercive socialism, we’re not going to do that. So we rejected all those treaties ever since 1966. Yet we’re signing up now for our first economic, social and cultural treaty which means as a matter of international binding law that goes to the supremacy clause level in our Constitution, we’re signing up to be an official socialist nation, cradle-to-grave care for the disabled. Maybe Americans want to do that, but I think we’d want to do it as a matter of domestic law, not as a matter of international law. I personally don’t think that’s any business of Congress to do that sort of thing but I certainly don’t want to be doing it when the United Nations tells us to do it. So those are two big ways it will affect every American and there are more.

Deace: Michael Farris is here with us from Patrick Henry College, also from the Home School Legal Defense Association, talking about another attempt to usurp American sovereignty, to essentially do an end-run around the Constitution and then of course due in freedom and liberty through an effort through the United Nations.

…

Farris: If they can get this one through, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, CEDAW, which is the women’s treaty with all kinds of junk in that one, and then a whole host of other UN treaties that the Obama administration wants to send our way, it’s a way to make the socialist, liberal, amoral element a permanent feature of our law through the use of treaties and they are going to do a full-force attack. We’ve got to stop them now. It’s not like just the camel nose in the tent, it is that too, but we don’t want a camel’s nose in our constitutional system, that’s what we don’t want.

Since I can't fathom any rationale for the Koch's and their ilk wanting such a vote, only their psychosis about UN sovereignty, could even incline them toward such a vote. Even then, it takes abject depravity to not require compliance for the benefit of our veterans (and elderly) abroad. Sick, sick, sick!

My wife and I traveled in Europe a lot the last 3 years (we are both cancer survivors) and the difficulty of getting luggage from the port in Venice to the train station (only about 300 yards) is made excruciatingly difficult by having to climb a bridge of steps dragging wheeled suitcases, when in other locations, wooden ramps along the edge of the bridges make them a piece of cake to get over. Same is true getting through tunnels in train stations all over Europe. Easy, inexpensive to do, but won't get done without a push.

They hate the United Nations and the hate United Workers and, since they hate everything it stands for, they hate the United States. The only collections of concerns and power they approve of are corporations and chambers of commerce.

You make a good point, what they would disparage as collectivism is OK if it is a behemoth multinational bank or military systems supplier. But it is bad, on any scale if it is a group of workers, or senior citizens or disabled or veterans or you name it.

Let's all join the Chamber of Commerce! And when they ask for payments just say no, we want all the advantages, support, services and representation, but we don't want to pay the dues! Just like they do in Michigan!

The Senate has failed to ratify an international treaty intended to protect the rights of those with disabilities, as a bloc of conservatives opposed the treaty believing it could interfere with U.S. law.

The Senate voted 61 to 38 to ratify the Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities, a tally that fell short of the two-thirds needed to sign on to an international treaty.

At a news conference for the disabilities treaty, Sen. John McCain jokingly introduced Sen. John Kerry as “Mr. Secretary,” poking fun at speculation that Kerry could be named Secretary of Defense or State. Kerry replied by calling McCain “Mr. President.”

At a news conference for the disabilities treaty, Sen. John McCain jokingly introduced Sen. John Kerry as “Mr. Secretary,” poking fun at speculation that Kerry could be named Secretary of Defense or State. Kerry replied by calling McCain “Mr. President.”

The 2006 treaty, which forbids discrimination of the disabled, has enjoyed bipartisan support. Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the treaty would encourage other nations to develop the kind of protections the United States adopted 22 years ago with the Americans With Disabilities Act. The international treaty’s thrust, he said, was a message: “Be more like us.”

But the treaty has split Republicans. Among its most vocal supporters were Republican war veterans, including President George H.W. Bush and former senator Bob Dole, who was injured in World War II and made a rare return to the Senate floor Tuesday to observe the vote and lend his stature.

Other conservatives were deeply suspicious of the United Nations, which would oversee treaty obligations. Those who opposed the treaty included former senator and Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum, the father of a developmentally disabled child who had traveled to Capitol Hill last week to encourage fellow Republicans to vote no.

He and other conservatives argued that the treaty could relinquish U.S. sovereignty to a U.N. committee charged with overseeing a ban on discrimination and determining how the disabled, including children, should be treated. They particularly worried that the committee could violate the rights of parents who choose to home school their disabled children.

“This is a direct assault on us,” Santorum said.

Nations that have signed on to the treaty include China, Iran and Syria. Opponents said that American approval might give the impression that the United States accepts how those nations treat their disabled citizens.

“The hard reality is that there are nation-states, like China, who do like to sign up to these organizations and gain the reputation for doing good things while, in fact, not doing good things,” said Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.)

Supporters dismissed those fears as paranoid, noting that the treaty would change nothing in U.S. law without further approval from Congress.

“With these provisions, the United States can join the convention as an expression — an expression — of our leadership on disability rights without ceding any of our ability to decide for ourselves how best to address those issue in our law,” said Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.).

The risk of rejection grew after Santorum and Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) announced that they had gathered the signatures of 36 fellow Republicans on a letter opposing the adoption of the measure during this month’s lame-duck session.

But its proponents had pushed forward in hopes of peeling off a handful of Republican opponents. Senators were greeted this week near their basement subway by veterans and others in wheelchairs who pushed for support.

In deference to the solemnity of the vote, Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) asked that senators cast their votes while seated at their desks — a rare move to observe the chamber’s formal rules that require each senator to respond to the clerk’s announcement of their name with an “aye” or “no.”

In practice, senators usually vote by giving a signal to the clerk — sometimes a thumbs up or down.

I've always hated the UN; this isn't world war - we don't need allies - so why would we be hobnobbin' with a bunch a' fools. And when we do decide to do the big nasty we're going to be kickin' half of them into a foxhole.

A treaty is a formal agreement between two or more nations that requires supplication; in this case we are the all powerful... I want unconditional surrender; I want ALL of their rights, not just the right to mistreat the disabled.

Can you imagine? Half these countries are actively engaged in disabling people at this very moment...

Disband the UN now! And if not, let's set some reasonable tone - English only and you have to pay us for the benefit of enjoying our pseudo-intellectual artistry as we paint the world beautiful. What a waste of tax payer dollars.

How do you do this? How do you decry the 1% while simultaneously empowering otherwise politically useless people as absolute monarchs?